


That Same Calm and Dreamy Cast of Mind

by KChan88



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: F/M, Major Character Injury, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:41:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21827641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KChan88/pseuds/KChan88
Summary: Raoul, Christine, and the immediate aftermath after Don Juan and everything that happened in Erik's lair. Raoul's hurt, Christine's worried, but they're alive, they're together, and finally, they have a future.
Relationships: Raoul de Chagny/Christine Daaé
Comments: 11
Kudos: 68





	That Same Calm and Dreamy Cast of Mind

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as an excuse for Raoul/Christine fluff, and because Raoul getting a rope wrapped around his neck actually is fairly serious, and I wanted to write about what the aftermath of that might look like.

Raoul rows them back across the lake. 

He slips an arm around her waist, tight, like he's afraid Erik might run up behind them and snatch her right out of his hands. But not too tight, not like he owns her, not like Erik's hands around her neck, not like, _you’ll be with me or no one_ , because Raoul has always cared most of all about her and her safety, her life, her happiness, whatever that meant about the two of them.

It’s one of the many reasons she loves him.

They don't talk, much. Just whispered _I love yous_ and _it will be all right_ and _we're almost there_ on the long walk back through the tunnels, back toward her dressing room. She hears the echoes of the mob, but she doesn't hear what they're saying, exactly, doesn't know if they've taken Erik or if he disappeared and she doesn't want him dead, she doesn't want them to find him, but she doesn't want him near her, either. She’s angry she’s hurt she’s sad she’s relieved, giddily relieved, all at once.

Raoul is shivering. 

He's wet. He must have swum across the lake, she realizes now, but he isn't complaining.

Both of them just want _out_.

They step through where the mirror should be and Christine releases a breath, though she won't feel safe until they're gone from the opera house itself. 

Raoul removes his arm from around her waist, and she's about to speak, she's about to say _thank you_ , except he's collapsing onto the ground, his eyes bloodshot. Were they bloodshot before? She doesn’t know, because some things are sharp, too sharp, while others are hazy.

He's vomiting. Bile, and not much else, because neither of them have eaten a lot, today. He coughs, violently, until it makes him shudder. 

She gets down on the floor next to him, kneeling at his side and putting a gentle hand on his back.

"Raoul, darling," she says softly, trying not to panic, trying to be calm, for him, she has to _be calm_. She’s so tired but she feels stronger now, too. Stronger now that she’s stood up to her old tutor and said _you hurt me_. Said _no_. Said _keep me, and let him go_. "Raoul, can you breathe?"

Raoul coughs again and dry heaves, but he does nod, though this only does a little to reassure her. 

"Help!" she cries out, to any fool who might still be backstage, and not part of the mob. "Please help! It's Christine Daae!" 

Madam Giry bursts through the door not a minute later, with Raoul's brother Philippe in tow, his height and broad shoulders making the ballet mistress look even smaller. Raoul's not throwing up anymore but he's breathing hard and he's wheezing, too, Christine hears it. 

"Christine, god, you're here!" Madame Giry exclaims. "What happened?" 

She doesn't have time for the whole explanation. She barely wants to give them this part but she has to, for Raoul. 

"Erik...the Phantom, I mean, tried to hang Raoul," Christine says, looking from Madame Giry and then to Philippe, who has tears in his eyes as he gets on his knees next to his baby brother. “Rope dropped down from the ceiling somewhere and wrapped around Raoul’s neck and it kept getting tighter, somehow.”

"Raoul..." Philippe's gentle, gentler than Christine's heard him before. She knows he's had some concerns over Raoul marrying her, but she doesn't see blame or anger, just worry for someone they share in common. "Lad, can you speak to us?" 

Raoul gives one last cough, and thankfully, doesn't vomit again. 

"Yes, sorry." He blushes, the red rushing from his cheeks to the roots of his fair hair. His voice is hoarse, though, and fainter than normal. "I didn't mean to frighten you."

Christine runs her hand up and down his back, hoping it might soothe him. "Can you tell us what it feels like?" 

Raoul sits back on his heels, touching the raw, red, angry line around his neck, which is just starting to bruise. "It feels swollen. I can breathe but, it's irritated." He looks at Christine, his eyes round with fear. "We need to get you out of here, Christine."

Christine pouts, pursing her lips. "I'm fine, we need to get _you_ out of here." 

She's not _fine_ , but she's not physically hurt, other than some exhaustion and a sore wrist from Erik dragging her down the tunnel. 

"All right," Madame Giry says mildly, before turning toward Philippe. “Monsieur le Comte, I assume you have your carriage?”

Philippe looks startled at the slight order in Madame Giry’s voice. “Yes. Right. I’ll have it brought around. Raoul?” he asks, that gentleness in his tone again. “Are you all right walking?”

“I’ll get Monsieur Andre or Firmin to come help,” Madame Giry cuts in before Raoul can argue, though he’s already opened his mouth to do so. “We can manage, with Christine.”

“Christine are you all right to help?” Philippe asks, giving her a concerned once over.

“I’ll make sure of it, monsieur,” Madame Giry cuts in again. “Please go, your brother needs a doctor.”

Philippe brushes his thumb down Raoul’s cheek and goes, obeying Madame Giry.

“I’ll be back in just a moment,”’ Madame Giry tells them, and she softens, for just a moment. “Thank God you’re both alive.”

She sounds surprised. Relieved, but surprised. Sometimes Christine wants to be angry with Madame Giry for not exactly discouraging her about Erik in the early days, but she seems regretful of it now. Christine has affection for Madame Giry, and she thinks it’s returned, but the old woman is more a mystery than anything else.

“Wait, Madame Giry, might I ask where Meg went?” Christine says, feeling a sudden need for her old friend, who is always there, always dependable, and very fond of Raoul, besides.

“She followed the mob.” Madame Giry shakes her head, looking worried. “But they’ll all be back soon, I expect. I doubt if he let you go that he’ll waste his time attacking that many people.”

She says _he_ with a hint of fear in her voice, but then she’s gone, leaving Raoul and Christine alone.

“Let’s get you up,” Christine whispers, standing and reaching out for Raoul’s hand, which he takes without comment. “You can sit in the chair.”

He does as she asks, and it’s strange to be in here, in this room so haunted by Erik’s presence, in this room where they first met again, both of them more innocent than they are now. She, the young ingénue after her triumph, still thinking her tutor was some strange spirit sent by her father. He the bright, brave vicomte, in love with her already, in love with her since he was a child. She was afraid, then. Afraid of Erik, even if she’d never seen him, but that feels like a mere shade of the fear she’s felt since.

_Christine Daae, where is your red scarf? After all the trouble I took. I was just fourteen and soaked to the skin._

She wants Raoul to sound like that again. She wants him to sound like that and not like the way he shouted her name six months ago when the chandelier almost crashed down on her head. Not like the way he was cut open and bleeding tonight when his words rang through the cavern, breaking her heart.

_Christine forgive me, please forgive me! I did it all for you and all for nothing!_

“Christine.”

Raoul says her name right as she’s recalling it in memory, and she thinks that he knows her so well sometimes, that she hardly knows what to do with it.

She looks at him and sees the tears in those blue eyes that usually shine with joy, and it makes her want to cry, too.

“I’m so sorry, Christine,” he says. “I should have known better than this plan, you warned me that it was dangerous and might not work and I should have…I was trying to save you, and you ended up saving me. You needed me, and all I did was get my neck in a rope.”

“Raoul…” Christine whispers, kneeling down next to him. “Don’t you understand that if you hadn’t come, he’d have trapped me there with him or whisked me away somewhere to get away from the mob? You did save me, and not just tonight, but by coming to the opera in the first place. You’re the one who pulled me out of the dark.” She blinks, tears welling up in her eyes, falling warm down her cheeks. “It’s all right that I returned the favor. It’s not something you have to feel sorry about. There was no good plan for getting the better of him.”

She was a little angry, at first, about Raoul’s plan, but then what else could they have done? Nothing else was presenting itself, either.

She hears Raoul wheezing still when he takes a deep breath, but it sounds, at least, less alarming than before. Raoul reaches for her hand and she takes his tightly, pulling it toward her and kissing his knuckles.

“You were so brave, Christine,” Raoul says, still very hoarse. “To think you would have stayed down there, just to save me.”

Christine shuts her eyes, leaning her forehead against Raoul’s leg, not caring about the fact that his trousers are still damp. “When that rope went around your neck, I was sure I couldn’t breathe, either. I couldn’t let him kill you. Not ever. Whatever that meant for me. I’m so _sorry_ he hurt you, Raoul.”

Suddenly she’s very conscious of the dress she’s wearing, a wedding dtress, and she flinches, visibly flinches, which doesn’t escape Raoul’s notice. She wants out of it, but she can’t right now. Changing will take too much time.

“Christine, I...” Raoul shivers again. “Did he...” he swallows, like he doesn’t want to ask the question. “Did he hurt you, when he put you in that dress?”

At first Christine doesn’t realize what he’s asking, and then she remembers the moment back in Erik’s lair with a rush of nausea. Raoul didn’t ask the question with jealousy or anger or anything like that, just pure concern for her.

_Am I now to be prey to your lust for flesh?_

“No.” She grasps his hand tighter. “He didn’t.”

Raoul shivers a third time, and Christine can’t let it go, what is taking them so long to get back?

“Here,” she says, reluctantly getting up. “Let me see if there’s a spare shirt in this chest over here, you’re wet.”

“Christine, what about...”

She spins around on one heel, putting a hand on her hip. “Me? I’m all right Raoul. Physically, I'm fine. I promise.”

She helps him out of the damp shirt and slides an over-large black one she finds in the chest—from an opera she doesn’t remember—over his head. Half-dressed people are nothing new to her, having worked in the opera, where everyone is changing in front of each other all the time, but when he blushes she blushes too. She’s seen him without his coat or waistcoat but she hasn’t seen him without his shirt, just yet, and she surely wouldn’t have preferred it to be like this. A clear, colorful memory bursts into her head. The night of the Masquerade Ball when he proposed to her.

_Christine, will you do me the honor of being my wife?_ He looked her straight in the eye, bold because he was feeling brave, confident, but his voice was shy.

He gave a delighted noise of surprise when she pulled him against the wall and kissed him until she was rumpling his costume, and he’d smeared her lipstick clean off.

_So_ , he asked as they broke apart, both of them breathless, and his grin making her feel light all over. _Is that a yes?_

Christine’s adjusting the shirt when Raoul speaks again, his voice still raspy.

“I won’t let anyone hurt you again, Christine,” he says, his earnest and tired and full of love. “I promise you. We’ll leave this building and we don’t ever have to come back here, if you shouldn’t wish it.”

She presses a kiss to his forehead just as the door opens again, and Madame Giry is back with a pale faced Andre in tow, Firmin coming in just behind.

“Miss Daae!” Andre exclaims, looking relieved, though Firmin looks more skeptical. “You’re all right, I can hardly believe it.” He turns his eyes on Raoul, catching the red ring around his neck. “Monsieur le Vicomte, how dreadful. Let’s get you outside, your brother is waiting with your carriage. Thankfully most people are gone now, but everything will be the talk of all Paris tomorrow, no doubt.”

“Thank you, Monsieur Andre,” Christine says, and she sees both the managers looking at her dress. Neither of them ask, and she’s grateful because she can’t talk about what happened, yet, not with anyone but Raoul because it’s so raw and the horrible memories are thrumming beneath her skin like they’re alive, the words _you try my patience, make your choice_ seared into her mind until she can’t bear to hear them anymore.

Andre and Firmin help Raoul out and she follows close behind with Madame Giry. They’re just reaching the carriage when a voice calls out to them from behind.

“Christine! Oh thank god!”

Meg.

Christine reaches for Meg’s hand just as Philippe gets Raoul into the carriage, and she knows she doesn’t have much time.

“You’re all right, both of you,” Meg says, kissing Christine’s hand. “All we found down in the lair was the mask, the Phantom was gone and I was sure he might have absconded with the both of you.” She peers into the carriage. “Is Raoul all right?”

“Hurt,” Christine says vaguely, not wanting to say _Erik tried to hang him_ out here in the street. “I have to go with him to make sure he’s taken care of but...” Christine realizes she doesn’t know where she’s staying, because she and Raoul aren’t married yet but she can’t imagine going back to the opera, not now.

“Christine will be staying with us,” Philippe cuts in. “Please feel free to come visit in a few days, Madmoiselle Giry. I’m hoping my brother will be feeling better by then.”

Philippe hasn’t been rude to Christine, exactly, but she could tell he had his reservations, but something’s changed in him tonight, like he knows they didn’t just get away from Erik out of dumb luck, like he knows she’s responsible, somehow, for saving Raoul’s life. She’s barely looking at it that way, because part of her feels stupid for letting Erik into her life like this at all, but then, it isn’t her fault, Raoul’s said so many times it isn’t.

Tonight she saw clearly that it wasn’t, that she was manipulated and mistreated, but sometimes it’s hard not to blame herself.

It’s over now. Over.

_It’s over now, the music of the night!_

Christine’s swept into the carriage after that, riding from the only home she’s known for years, and she doesn’t know when she’ll go back.

* * *

The cold, wet terror of the Phantom’s lair seems like another world entirely from the warmth of Raoul’s bedroom. Like perhaps it was a fever dream, turned into a twisting, terrible nightmare. It _was_ a nightmare, but the bruise around his neck and the very real memories say that it was a waking one.

He’s safe, now. And more importantly Christine is safe. But he won’t be forgetting about what happened a few hours ago for a very long time. The doctor’s been in and out, giving him some medication that’s made him hazier than he likes. Laudanum? He thinks it was Laudanum.

_Your trachea’s bruised_ , he said, though he didn’t seem gravely concerned. It will be swollen for a few days, but not enough to block your airway off to a deadly degree. _You do need to rest._

Raoul’s not exactly sure what Philippe told the doctor about what caused the injuries, but he didn’t press for details, thankfully.

“What am I going to do with you?” Philippe mutters from the chair next to his bed. “Nothing rash for at least six months, Raoul.”

“Philippe,” Raoul chides, blinking to stay awake. “What was I supposed to do?”

“I know, I know,” Philippe says, but there’s the sound of loss in his voice, the sound of an older brother who is more like a father, because both their parents are long gone. Philippe was more of a father to Raoul than their actual father, even before he died. “I shall have to let your sisters know, without upsetting them too much. They’ll be here to fawn over you soon, no doubt.”

“I couldn’t let that madman take her,” Raoul whispers, because whatever relief he feels at the Phantom—Erik—letting them go, he won’t forgive him. Not yet.

“I know,” Philippe repeats. He pauses as if he doesn’t want to ask the question, but does, anyway. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”

Raoul looks away because he still feels a little bit like he failed, even if Christine says no, but he can’t keep things from his brother. He’s not good at keeping things generally, finding that talking always helps.

“I got down there and he had Christine in that foul wedding dress,” Raoul says, feeling tears in his eyes, and letting them fall. “He got me into that rope, and told Christine that she could either stay with him, and I’d be free, or she could leave, and he would kill me.”

“And she chose you your life.”

“Yes.”

Philippe pauses, and there’s admiration for Christine and grief for the situation in his face all at once. He brushes a stray hair from Raoul’s face. “She’s a brave girl, that fiancé of yours.”

“Yes,” Raoul echoes, smiling just a little. “But I didn’t want her to choose me.”

“Raoul...”

“I don’t mean I wanted to die. I mean I wanted her to be free more than anything else. And then he...well Christine said she would stay.” He keeps the part about the kiss to himself, not because he thinks it means Christine has romantic feelings for the Phantom—he knows she doesn’t—but it seems too personal a thing to tell even his brother. “And then he...well her choice made him let us go.”

He thinks of that moment, when Erik was right up next to him with the candle in his hand, when there was a terrible, eternal pause, and then, he saw it.

The humanity in Erik’s eyes. The something _other_ than outright hatred. 

When the rope loosened and broke, Raoul could hardly believe it. There was another moment when the Phantom spoke to him, and there was a man there, instead of a ghost.

_Take her. Forget me. Forget all of this._

God, Raoul wishes he could.

“Can Christine come in and sit with me, please?” Raoul asks.

“Raoul,” Philippe’s half-grinning, but he’s shaking his head, too. “She may stay with us until the wedding, of course, I wouldn’t send her back to the opera, she’s very welcome here, but her being in your room in the evening alone isn’t proper.”

“Philippe,” Raoul presses, grasping his brother’s hand. “Please. I almost lost her, tonight. She almost lost me. Besides, you aren’t exactly one to talk, you certainly spend enough time with La Sorelli. It’s not _really_ your business, but we won’t get up to anything.”

Philippe raises his hand and clearly wants to say _Sorelli isn’t my betrothed_ , but doesn’t, giving Raoul a real smile, instead, and squeezing his hand in return. “All right. All right.”

Philippe goes for Christine himself, returning a few minutes later with Raoul’s pink-cheeked fiancé, who must have washed her face in their time apart, her long, unruly curls braided back. She’s out of that wedding dress, too, and he’s grateful. He doesn’t like to think too long upon Erik putting her in it, Erik seeing her underthings, not because he’s jealous, but because it’s a violation.

“I’ll give you a little while,” Philippe says. “Don’t hesitate to say if you need something.” He looks at Christine, and he’s smiling, even if he looks exhausted. “Either of you. I expect the police might come calling tomorrow, so mind the time. You both need your rest.”

Philippe shuts the door behind him, and finally, after everything, Raoul and Christine are alone.

Raoul shifts over on the bed, patting the spot next to him. “Lay down with me?”

Christine cocks her head. “Raoul. What if someone...”

Raoul reaches up for her hand, and she falls quiet.

“No one will bother us, here. No one will see us or judge us,” he says. “Please, Christine.”

She smiles, then, and it’s a sad smile, but he sees her in it still, and she lays down on her side next to him, putting a hand on his cheek and running her thumb up and down. They don’t talk about tomorrow. They don’t talk about what the police might ask, and how Raoul knows Christine won’t want to turn Erik in, and how even if part of him does, part of him doesn’t, at the same time. It all feels so painfully private to share with the world, that _almost_ that both of them went through tonight.

“Are you feeling better?” she asks. “You had me worried.”

Raoul nods. “Bruised trachea, apparently. Swollen, a bit. It will heal over a few weeks. But the doctor said it could have been worse.” He pauses, shifting and slipping an arm around her waist because he needs her closer, he needs to know no one is going to try and take her like that again. “I won’t let someone like that hurt you ever again, Christine,” he says, his voice cracking. “I shouldn’t promise such a thing, but I’m promising, anyway.”

She adjusts so she can look at him, taking his free hand and intertwining their fingers. “You are so brave. You risked your life for me, Raoul. I can’t even...begin to explain what that makes me feel.”

“ _You’re_ brave,” Raoul argues. “You were going to throw your life away to keep me alive. And I...all I want, in this entire world, is for you to be happy. More than anything, Christine.”

She curls in closer to him, forgetting her earlier worries about propriety, because when have they ever been proper, really? Never, not even when they were children, knocking on neighbors’ doors and asking for a stories.

“Christine?” Raoul asks, when she doesn’t respond. “Are you all right?

She leans back, giving him a soft, sad smile. “No. But I will be, because you’re here. And I...I think I learned something, tonight.”

“What’s that?”

“That I’m stronger than I thought I was,” she whispers, and Raoul hears something new break open in her voice. “That I’m...more than just a grieving girl. And I think…well I think we were both brave, tonight.”

Raoul kisses her, then. He kisses her even if his throat hurts and even as exhaustion thrums through him like he’s never slept in his life. Because they’re _alive_ , and Christine believes in herself the way he always has, and in the wake of their horror, he’s so glad. There will be troubled days ahead, he knows, but there’s light, at the end of this. He feels it.

They fall asleep soon after, and for the first time in weeks, Raoul doesn’t dream.


End file.
